Does a Politician’s Attractiveness Sway Votes?

We often like to think we head into the voting booth with a completely rational mind: weighing up all the options and voting for the politician who best represents our preferences.

Well, a new study has suggested this isn’t quite so. It turns out that the average voter also thinks about the attractiveness of the politician, and that we tend to vote for those representatives who are more handsome or beautiful.

The Daily’s Julia Carr-Catzel discussed the importance of beauty in politics, with Dr Rodrigo Praino, Lecturer in Government and Law at Flinders University.